Cracked Colours
by olive embers
Summary: ...Knights are important. That’s what I’m told. The Sorceress and her Knight, against the world, in a castle in the sky, full of colours and darkness. It's brilliant. Begin.


**PROLOGUE**

a heart filled of sky

-in which the narrator introduces herself

-_a three part story begins_

-**and the night comes**

-

The first things I notice are the colours.

Bluey-greens dripping into the reds of broken sunsets, a backdrop of silky black spreading thin over a white-dotted sky, turning everything below to ash and shadow.

Day is turning to night.

You know, sometimes I wonder why we're so scared of the night time. Maybe it's better not to see the acts of humanity in glorious daylight, an egg yolk sun expanding and dripping unto cerulean, infecting the egg whites as they all come together under the simmering bluey saucepan.

I always love the colours.

People tend to notice the colours of sunrise and sunset, but I like noticing the in-between. It gives a sense of timelessness to the earth. Colours are always changing, shifting, moving. And so are humans.

When I need to be distracted from seeing the humans, I see the colours.

(**And maybe it's better that way. People don't like to see **_**me**_

You're wondering who I am. I know you are.

I'm the light, and I'm the dark. It's best to put it that way. I walk between the both of them and find shades to live in, shades to manipulate. Between brilliant white feathers and black inky gowns, I find my own terms.

I'm … the Sorceress. _A _Sorceress, really, but the only one left now.

I'm separate from the others, the normal people, who live with their eyes closed and bodies clumsy. I can see what they are, but they can't. They just see the monster of the magic in me, and I can't break through their impenetrable barriers.

Their ignorance.

Maybe it's time I stopped trying?

Prejudice lives in the darkness of people's eyes and hearts. What they can't comprehend and understand. When their eyes are fully dark, they are lost.

Right now, I can see sky blue, electricity and static around the edges, closing in, searching, captivating––

And one word, for the night.

"Rinoa."

(**Knights are important. That's what I'm told. The Sorceress and her Knight, against the world, in a castle in the sky, full of colours and darkness. **

**It's **_**brilliant**_**. I capture my blood-stained feather between my fingertips.**

**Begin.**)

-

**PART I**

**rubies** sapphires _emeralds_

**-in which there are problems**

-there is fear, seeping between the threads of darkness

-_and there is romance_

-

"Rinoa."

I like to match voices to colours. Squall's voice sounds kind of like an autumn day, like brown-red leaves cracking underfoot, like _rubies _travelling from his throat and spilling out, pelting beige-pink skin.

I look up from my magazine. "Yeah?"

Squall sits, black-against-black.

-_I swear, he only chose that sofa because he could camouflage himself when he sat on it_-

"We've…gotten reports from Galbadia again," Squall's voice continues on its ruby-road, paving sickly reds and beautiful ones. It's all about the _tones_, right? "They seem intent on sealing you. They will resort to physical violence if we don't surrender you."

(**The situation: Galbadia believes I'm evil. And maybe we should believe them. Maybe I **_**am**_**. But now is not the time for philosophy. War is brewing again, and this time it is pure human nature, and no maniacal sorceress can be blamed.**

**Unless I play the part. And while it sounds appealing… crazy is not my colour.**

**The Galbadians don't seem to believe me on this.**)

That part of his speech sounds pure and unadulterated black. And black's not a colour.

"Squall, you don't have to protect me," I'm sure about this. I'm sure I can handle it myself. "You can't risk Garden because of me, either."

"You're right," he says slowly, and my chest stings. "about the second part."

"Hmm?"

"But I _do _have to protect you, and I will." Squall nods, weighing the circumstances.

"Will they start a full-on war to get to me? Against Garden?" I ask, feeling my own voice––like sapphires, I've decided, only with a tinge of stardust and white-black shades in between, like light reflecting except it's magic––crackle.

"No, because we're leaving." And he sounds so sure.

"Leaving?" leaving means being outside Garden, outside protection and mercenaries and protocol and––leaving it behind.

This is Squall's life. Squall smells of the military and of gunpowder. He smells like rulebooks and fighting for the highest bidder. He does not smell like freedom. His colours all point to being swallowed by it, by Garden––

The rubies shift inside his throat, fighting for release.

(**Squall's life is a constant fight. Sometimes I can't tell what the enemy is. **

**Sometimes I don't think he can, either.**)

"It's the only way," the rubies tell me.

Don't you hate it when someone says that?

The only way is the obvious way. And the obvious way is paved by the decisions others make to close in on you. The only way was to follow Martine's orders and assassinate the sorceress––but that was the end of the only way. Because the only way would have been to remain in D-District until the missiles blew everything to a full-scale whiteness, and we did not let that be the only way.

The fall-out was the fall-in, and we drowned in decisions outside of protocol.

And that was how we won.

"Are you _sure_?"

I'm the Sorceress. I'm the victim here.

(**But only until I get tired of it. And then I will let the curtains open, and there will be me, and the Galbadians. And I know I will win.**

**Until then, I'm scared.**)

"Yes," he nods, and a SeeD backpack brushes against my leg. _Pack, _says Squall's sky-blue eyes, _and pack what you need. _

It's night outside, stars dotting the universe, screaming their never-ending symphony of brightness and a supernova of regret swamps me. The scientist tells you that by the time the light of a star reaches your eyes, it's probably already dead. Humans are forever slow. The blanket of blackness and colours––the scientists also tell you black is not a colour, but I don't believe them––envelopes me.

Rubies. Sapphires. Stars.

A shooting star streaks across the sky, but I'm sick of the night. I turn back and find the sky again, the daylight, in Squall's eyes.

But I don't make a wish.

The shooting star is probably already burnt out.

(**Squall is reality. And so is running away.**

**Logic confuses me sometimes.**)

-

**RINOA'S DIARY**

_I always kinda wonder about fairytales. _

_The princess and prince charming always seem to live happily ever after in ball gowns and formal wear and in a beautiful sky-lit castle. The witch always loses, because she's ugly and evil. And that's all there is to it._

_I wonder, then, if I'm the witch, where does Squall come into it?_

_The witch never has prince charming. The witch never has a knight. And the knight certainly never runs away with her, runs away from the people who want the witch dead. The witch always dies. She melts, she burns out, she explodes into a multitude of colours that soon fade from existence. _

_Because she's evil._

_And I always kinda wonder whether I'm just trying to fool myself about this whole thing, or if I actually have a chance. Can witches overcome the stereotype and prove that they are not __**good**__, they are not __**pure**__, but they are human and that seems to be enough for everyone else?_

_Can the witch live by the same rules as everyone else? Or is she doomed to a fate of darkness and ugliness and self-obsession?_

_(The self-obsession, I can understand. I kinda do have a diary.)_

_Maybe … it's time for me to make my own fairytale. _

_One that's __**mine**__, and has all the things a fairytale needs, except for:_

_The defeat of evil._

_No, I think the evil is more deep-seated this time around, because you can't kill humanity. _

_(Well, if you did, you might __**then**__ rank as evil.)_

…_I need a distraction._

_There aren't any interesting colours, except for the repeated emerald of the trees and the way it shifts and shimmers every time the car hits a bump in the road. Shades are constantly changing but the green always stays._

_I could make some deep metaphorical insight right now._

_But I won't._

-

"Where are we going?" I ask eventually, because I realise that aimless driving might not be enough to save us from the martial might of the Galbadians.

"Esthar."

The word lacks all rubies.

(**Squall and the situation with his father: not good.**

**This means that I mean more to him than his pride, which is a good sign.**)

I fog up the window with my breath, tracing patterns on the frame. Selphie, Quistis, Zell, Irvine. Friends left behind.

A star. For the tradition.

A smiley face. For the fear.

It sat at the edges, tightly curled around the darkness, ready to lash out when sunlight persevered. Yellowy orange. I can almost imagine it.

The pictures make the SeeD car look juvenile, but Squall doesn't seem to notice, and if he does, is probably beyond grouching about it.

"Esthar?" it's more of an echo than a question.

"Laguna offered. And Ellone believes it's for the better. They don't think Galbadia would attack Esthar openly, and we can make it appear as though we're going to seal you."

…I get it.

(**The word prisoner floats into my mind**.)

The emerald seems to darken, as I turn away from the window and glance at my knight. His knuckles are white where they grip the steering wheel, and he steals a glance at me, sky blue crackling again. It's sort of ferocious.

"It's going to be okay," he offers, but I just tilt my head away, letting a curtain of russet-black obscure my vision.

My hair comforts me. It can be a curtain, and it can be a divider.

"I know," I reply. "But _okay _isn't exactly a prize-winner, is it?"

"It's better than nothing."

Which it is. I stare down at my hands. Sapphire meshes with skin. I seem to live in an endless world of blue, and Squall Leonhart comes and stains it red. And now the beginning of the end, right here, gives it a green tinge.

Yes. That's poetry for you.

"…you should've just let me get sealed the first time," I nod decisively. "It would've made a lot of things easier."

It would've.

Everything, basically.

But the Galbadians can't be pleased, and neither can Squall.

"_No_," Squall says firmly.

(**Squall has too much pride about this. He doesn't admit defeat, and he doesn't want to lose anyone else. I understand.**

**But sometimes you have to be sensible.**

**Right?**)

"Hmm?"

"…I'll protect you," the rubies rub against each other, creating friction. And the friction sparks a fire. "No matter what happens. The Galbadians _won't _hurt you."

"Okay," I say, and believe him.

Emeralds glitter at me from outside the window.

I swallow the sapphires, and decide to drown in them.

Some things are better left unsaid.

-

**RINOA'S DIARY**

_Train rides are uneventful. Luckily, a route has been opened to Esthar, so there's no need to bypass Timber to get anywhere now. No Galbadian soldiers, and no backward politics. _

_I'm wondering about life._

_Even if we manage to get to Esthar and manage to get the Galbadian soldiers away … is that what my life's gonna be? Filled with impossible dreams and a paranoid Squall? Colours seeping through fingertips…sandy hourglasses…_

_Being a Sorceress requires introspection. And perspective._

_My perspective…_

_This train is driving to my end._

_(The Sorceress and Knight, together against the world. Remember?)_

-

It's snowing in Esthar.

But not with snow.

With fear. Everyone seems to be on edge, infected by the perpetual downpour of snowflakes which make you freeze. In terror.

Maybe it's the prospect of war, or maybe it's…

Maybe it's me.

Squall is next to me, the rubies stilled. The emeralds are far behind.

The sapphires are left.

"Esthar," I nod, throat dry. "It's…changed a little."

"…" Squall didn't respond. He didn't need to. There was enough fear here.

(**If someone took this the wrong way … they would probably think we were eloping.**

**Because we would really go to where Squall's dad lives.**

**At least Squall's speech before was romantic…**)

-

The sky was purple.

Not black, and not blue.

A new beginning.

A new end.

The colours are mocking me.

* * *

A/N: Just a three part thing I am starting. I got inspiration from _the Book Thief _by Marcus Zuzak, because it's awesome. Although it _is _from Death's POV...whatever! This is totally random. Yes.


End file.
